Pay day
on Sally in Namibia (Namibia), 07/Aug/2009 08:16, 34 days ago
You wake up, walk into town thinking I'll just nip into town to go to the bank and do a bit of shopping, it shouldn't take more than an hour. You get there and there are queues out of the door of the bank, people leaving the supermarkets with trolleys piled high with huge bags of maize meal, macaroni, sugar and several litres of oil. What the...? OH. Realisation dawns. It's pay day.Everything is different around pay day. There are more drunk people about, there are more accidents on the roads because there are more drunk people driving about, there is increased crime because criminals know that people have money, Bush Bar plays its music louder and longer into the night (when parents get money that's when students get their money too), the supermarkets are heaving and the shelves are empty (think Christmas in the UK but every month).All of this lasts about two or three days maximum and then all the money is spent and it's back to normal for another month. The whole phenomenon flummoxes me– it is symptomatic of a culture which does not believe in saving – instead when money comes in it is distributed and spent immediately and then what is bought must last the whole month until another pay cheque arrives.The best plan is to lie low over pay day weekend and go back when the shelves are no longer empty, there are only 30 people in the queue at the bank and it is safe to be on the roads again.